Seasonal workers crisis needs urgent action – MPS
Convincing the Home Office and Prime Minister Theresa May that the introduction of a seasonal agricultural workers scheme (SAWS) would not impact on immigration figures or policy remains the key hurdle to be overcome in order to get such a proposal off the ground.
And with the lack of such a scheme already seeing crops left to rot in fields, cross-party support for such a measure was evident yesterday when members of Westminster’s Scottish affairs committee – which last week recommended the introduction of a SAWS scheme – visited a berry farm in Perthshire where unharvested fruit this week rotted in the field due to lack of pickers.
The committee’s chairman, SNP MP Pete Wishart, said that with widespread support and Defra – including Secretary of State Michael Gove – making genuinely supportive noises for such a move, momentum was growing to get a scheme introduced.
“What we need to do now is convince those up the tree who seem to have the misplaced perception that that a SAWS impacts on general immigration policy that this is not the case,” he said.
“Under such a scheme people, many of them students, would be in the country for a specified time under licence – and if they did anything to break the conditions of that licence they would be thrown out.”
He said that although immigration had been such a key feature of the Brexit issue, it was important that the case for the soft fruit – and other agricultural sectors – where migrant labour played such a key role was forcefully made.
Fellow committee member, Conservative MP David Duguid, added that he had had positive conversations on the issue with the minister of state for immigration, Caroline Nokes.
“After all we’re not talking about people settling down and living here, they would come to do a job for a specified period and then go home again,” he said, adding that, with increasing affluence in many member states, such a scheme should be open to workers not just from the EU but also from further afield.
And although Parliament was now in recess and “nothing happens overnight”, Duguid said he did, however, recognise the urgency to get measures approved – and hoped that a scheme would be up and running before next year.
The pair were joined by Labour MP’S, Hugh Gaffney and Ged Killen – while the committee’s vice-chair, Conservative MP John Lamont, visited Border Berries near Kelso.
The event was organised bynfuscotland–andvicepresident Martin Kennedy said political dithering had led to the distressing sight of crops being left to rot in the fields:
“To see quality Scottish produce wasting in fields and polytunnels is appallingandthelossinpotential value and revenue to businesses and the wider rural economy must be recognised and addressed,” said Kennedy.
Speaking from Kelso, Lamont added: “Irrespective of Brexit, the labour shortage in the soft fruit industry has escalated over recent years and is now at a critical stage.”
Estimating that the industry would soon be 20,000 workers short of what it required, he said that domestic labour and that from the European Economic Area simply wouldn’t cover the shortfall.
“Some farmers are already starting to lose income and need certainty about future hiring arrangements,” he said.
“A seasonal scheme worked well in the past, and would, I believe, work again now. The government must act before the next harvest.”